While for most people the words “wooden type” might not cause immediate excitement, once you step into the Hamilton Wood Type museum in Two-Rivers Wisconsin, that quickly changes.

The history of wooden type has seen it fall in and out of favor many times over the years. Movable wooden type was first developed in China around 1040 AD, though was rejected in favor of clay type, due to the presence of wood grain in the print, and the warping of the wood blocks due to the ink.

Wooden type returned to in China in the 1200s when a cheaper and more efficient method of producing it (including typesetting with bamboo strips to hold the blocks in place) was developed, making wood type a worthwhile alternative to clay. In 1834, William Leavenworth brought the use of wooden type back to America for much the same reasons, it was cheaper then lead, and now, it could be carved by machine, making it much more uniform.

Then in 1868, a young man named Edward J. Hamilton was asked by a rushed printer, with no time to order a special type set from Chicago, to carve a set of wooden type. Hamilton did so on a foot-powered scroll saw on his mothers back porch, and the type was a hit. By 1900 Hamilton was the largest wooden type provider in the United States. Many of America’s most famous printed materials were done in Hamiltons’s wooden types including the infamous “Wanted” posters so often seen in westerns.

Over time, wooden type, and then physical type altogether fell out of common usage. Today the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum is the only museum “dedicated to the preservation, study, production and printing of wood type.” The museum is run by volunteers from the Two Rivers Historical Society, has over “1.5 million pieces of wood type and more than 1,000 styles and sizes of patterns.”

The museums most impressive display is the 145-foot wall of type, the world’s largest wall of wood type and the 1,000s of different styles of wooden type in drawer after drawer. The museum also has “a fully functional workshop and educational venue” ‘illustrating antique printing technologies including the production of hot metal type, hand operated printing presses, tools of the craft and rare type specimen catalogs.”

As letterpress and other, once largely forgotten forms and crafts of typography come back into style, it seems wooden type, and the Hamilton museum which has kept the tradition alive, is once again ready for the spotlight.

Melvin the Machine is best described as a Rube Goldberg machine with a twist. Besides doing what Rube Goldbergs do best – performing a simple task as inefficiently as possible, often in the form of a chain reaction – Melvin has an identity. Actually, the only purpose of this machine is promoting its own identity.

Melvin, who was created by Dutch Studio, HEYHEYHEY, takes pictures and makes video’s of his audience which he instantly uploads to his blog, Facebook and Twitter account. Besides that he also makes his own merchandise. The whole crazy process happens in about four minutes!

It’s a cycle that has repeated itself in many urban areas across the country: the downtown core starts suffering, real estate prices go down, creative professionals take advantage of deals on great old spaces and fix them up, and the newly vibrant neighborhoods and valuable properties in turn attract businesses and residents back to downtown.

Four creative businesses in Dayton have taken the first steps to start revitalizing Dayton, beginning from the ground up by adapting existing downtown spaces to fit their needs. And while they’ve all taken different approaches, they seem to agree on one thing: in this market, it’s foolish not to invest in downtown Dayton.

How do you translate exuberant creative energy into a viable career with big-name brands? Find out Tuesday, Sept. 21, as DCS and the school of advertising art welcome Tony Neary and Tom Kisker from Cincinnati’s own Traction. The session kicks off at 6 p.m. at saa.

A founding partner of Traction as well as a talented designer and illustrator, Tony Neary has led creative development for multiple P&G brands as well as several national and global brands including Dave’s Gourmet, MeadWestvaco and Coca-Cola. The plan of launching Traction came to fruition in early 2007. Although, the contingency plan of enrolling in rodeo clown school is still a viable option.

The Droste effect is a specific kind of recursive picture. An image exhibiting the Droste effect depicts a smaller version of itself in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear. This smaller version then depicts an even smaller version of itself in the same place, and so on.

The effect is named after a particular image from a 1904 campaign that appeared on the tins and boxes of Netherlands Droste cocoa powder. Here are some other examples of the Droste Effect in packaging, featuring Land O’ Lakes Butter, Cracker Jacks and Morton Salt.

Shot by Showdown Visual’s Kenny Mosher this recruiting video tells you what The School of Advertising Art is all about. Way different than the old digs that I graduated from way back in 1991. Props to Kenny for a sweet promo video and to the good folks at saa for their ongoing efforts to raise the creative bar.

If you’re not already following Real Mart on Twitter, now’s the time! We’ve started a brand new Give-away series that will last through the summer. Who wants free stuff? YOU DO!

Every two weeks or so, we’ll be giving away an item from the shop. All you have to do is follow @ShopRealMart and Re-Tweet our give-away messages. This week we’re giving away a signed and numbered print of the GeoStellar print.

The way it works is easy—each organization seeks out donations of products, services or discounts to be auctioned the night of the party. Then the proceeds from the sales of these donated items go to help to support: on-going education, programming, public service projects, and much more. Your donation not only helps the continuation of DCS, but is good publicity for your company as well.

So that’s our spiel—please help us by contributing what you can. Every items helps. In return we’ll do our best to promote the items and your company and you’ll have our enduring thanks.

The sooner you donate, the more you’ll benefit from the pre-event publicity which includes an item/donor list posted on our Web site(s), e-mail blasts, and more…plus, this year you can follow us on Twitter via: @mmatc As donations come we’ll promote the donated items and who the generous donor(s) are.

This year please mark your calendars for our annual Holiday Party & Auction at the NCR Country Club on Thursday, December 3, 2009. The theme this year is “Meet Me at the Club”, and we intend to bring back the glitz and celebrate the renewed optimism of the late 1930s.

For the past 5 years, Craig Neuman has nurtured great ideas into great design as Creative Director at Midwestern creative powerhouse, Barkley. The Kansas City-based, full-service advertising agency has built up an impressive client list and some impressive work. They also have a rocket on top of their building and, among other notable quirks, they are 100% employee-owned.

Clearly, Barkley takes their work seriously, but they don’t take themselves too seriously—and neither does Neuman. Just watch his discussion about Americans butchering the Queen’s English and you can see that he delights in observing and critiquing the world around him. Craig’s work has appeared in The One Show Annual, Communication Arts, Graphis, Print, National ADDYs and POP Times.

DCS will present Craig Neuman at SAA on Monday, November 9 beginning at 6:00PM. That’s coming up very soon and seating is limited, so register online now to reserve your spot.

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About Craig Neuman

Craig oversees a talented design group at Barkley that works on strategy and execution of brand identity, packaging and POP displays. His work has been honored by Communication Arts, Graphis, Print Regional Design Annual, National Gold Addys and One Show Design Annuals. Craig has been involved with creating effective communication strategies for clients including 24-Hour Fitness, Sonic Drive-ins, Blue Bunny Ice Cream, L’Oreal, March of Dimes and H+R Block.

Perhaps his proudest moment? Winning a James Beard Award, the culinary equivalent of an Oscar, for best restaurant graphics in the nation.

Vitamin is a design-driven production company located in Chicago. Offering an eclectic collection of directors and artists from a myriad disciplines. their work combines forms and genres from live action, animation, motion design, stop motion, photography and many other forms.

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